Starry Night
by SoItGoes19
Summary: Oneshot: Astrid comforts Walter under the stars. Lite!Walstrid.


**A/N: Just something I wrote to keep busy before the finale. This takes place between Northwest Passage and Part One of the Finale. Which was awesome BTW. It can be seen either as romance or friendship, although personally I'm partial to the Walstrid ship myself :)**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fringe, although I wish I could own those Bishop boys.**

Astrid rapped loudly on the door. "Walter, it's Astrid. Can you open up please?" she said.

She peered inside the pitch dark house, hoping for some sign of life. Nothing.

"Are you here, Walter?" she asked.

Astrid shivered in the autumn Boston night, both from cold and worry. Where could he be? She had left him five messages, scoured the lab and Gene's stall (a frequent hiding place of his), and now all the lights were off in his house. There was no sign of him anywhere.

Astrid heard a soft moan coming from the back yard. She quickly descended the porch two stairs at a time and thrust open the creaky wooden gate. And then she saw him, curled up in a tiny ball in the middle of the yard, shaking and shivering. He stared up at the night sky, transfixed by what he saw.

She knelt down beside him, breaking his trance. "Oh hello, Astro," he said softly. "What are you doing here?" His grey eyes, normally sparkling with intelligence and wit, seemed cold and distant.

Astrid blinked quickly to keep the tears of relief from streaming down her face. "I was worried about you," she admitted, her voice cracking slightly. "You got upset at the grocery store today, and then when I called you and you didn't answer, I was afraid something terrible had happened."

She brushed a piece of dirt off of his grey cardigan. "Come on, Walter, let's go inside. It's freezing out here."

His breath created small puffs of smoke in the air. "I don't want to go inside. I'm looking at the stars."

"You can't stay out here, Walter. You'll catch your death!" She yanked on his arm and tried to pull the older man to his feet. He didn't move so much as an inch – even when he was heartbroken, he was still stubborn.

"You don't want to go in? Well fine, I guess I'll just stay out here with you." Astrid lay down on to the ground next to him, their finger tips touching ever so slightly. She held her breath and waited for him to explain, the way that he always did.

"I've always enjoyed looking at the stars whenever I feel lost," he said. His gaze remained fixed on the scene above him. "Over the past 5 million years the entire surface of the planet has changed; yet our Cro-Magnon ancestors probably saw nearly the same sky that we did. Whereas even the universe itself is in a constant state of flux, the night sky remains a relative constant."

"I taught Peter all of the constellations when he was a boy before he went off to space camp," he said suddenly. He turned to her. "Do you know the constellations?"

Astrid rubbed her frigid arms to try to get some heat flowing in them again. "No, I don't. I've always been more of a computer camp girl myself." Truthfully Astrid had spent most of her childhood in the city of Brooklyn with her nose in a book, trying to learn anything and everything so that she could make her escape. Astrid never had time to look at the stars.

"Would you like me to teach you?" he asked her.

"Sure, Walter," she replied.

Walter grabbed her hand and pointed to a cluster of stars in the east. "See those three stars, all in a straight line? They make up Orion's belt. According to Greek mythology Orion was the best hunter in the land, until he was killed by a giant scorpion. However to reward him for his fierce bravery the god's raised him up into the sky, where he remains to this day."

Astrid thought of Olivia, the fiercest hunter that she knew, doing in the sky with her own monsters. Olivia was the bravest out of all of them, and she was willing to sacrifice anything to get the job done – even herself.

"Orion's really more of a beginner's constellation, I'm afraid. But there, there, is the Gemini, a much more difficult find to be sure! See, they form a sort of pentagon to the northwest of Orion. The two Gemini twins Castor and Pollux were so devoted to each other that when Cator died, Pollux asked for a place in the heavens along with him."

The story of the twins made Astrid think of Peter. While the former conman might claim not to have a heart, Astrid could see that he was truly an emotionally driven person, especially when it came to a certain Olivia Dunham. Peter felt things on a deeper level then any of them did. Maybe that was why Walter's betrayal had hurt him so much.

Walter frowned. "Do you think that Peter's looking at these same stars wherever he is, Afro?"

He looked so…empty. Like he might just float away, up into the stars unless she gave him some reassurance to tie himself back down with. "I don't know Walter," she said. "I don't even know if they have the same stars in the parallel universe. But I do know that Peter loves you very much. He's just a little confused right now."

"He's not confused," Walter said bitterly. "He's angry, and rightfully so. I betrayed him. I came so _close _to telling him so many times, but each time I would stop myself because I was afraid of losing all the progress we had made. And now I've lost him forever."

Astrid squeezed his hand tightly. "You haven't lost him. When you love someone, a little piece of them is always there with you. Like the stars. Even though some of them are dead millions of miles away, we can still see their light. You'll always have Peter's light."

Walter seemed to appreciate this. He turned and buried his face in her mop of curls. "You're too good to me," he murmured, his deep voice muffled by her thick hair.

Astrid placed her arms around him gently, drawing him in closer to her so that the two of them pressed up against each other. "I love you, Walter," she said simply. And it was funny, because Astrid didn't quite know what she meant by those words: whether she loved him because he had become the father in their little family unit or because of those smiles that he gave her sometimes that made her blush like mad, even though she tried her best not to. But she knew that the words were strong, perhaps stronger than anything she had said in her entire life. She knew that they were true.

For a moment she felt weightless too, for she will certainly float away without him.

She continued to explain. "And if, for some reason Peter doesn't come back, you won't have to go back to Saint Claire's. I won't let them take you. You'll stay with me, alright?"

He weighed it over. "Can we still have pancake night on Thursdays?" he asked. "Peter and I always used to do that."

She laughed. "Yes, we can have pancake night."

"Good. Good," he repeated. "I love Thursdays."

He continued the astrology lesson once more. "Part of Ursa Minor right there is the big dipper. Located in the top right hand corner is the North Star." He paused. "I used to always tell Peter that if he could find the North Star he would always be able to find his way back home."

"Peter will come back, Walter," she reassured him once more.

"And if he doesn't…if he doesn't I still have you."

"Yes. You still have me."

She rested her head in the crook of his shoulder. Just like that the two of them were anchored again, no longer in danger of floating away into the distant night. They have sprouted roots in the soil which, which just a moment ago was so cold and unforgiving. For they have each other, and it is enough.

**Hope you guys liked it! Truthfully I fudged a bit of the information about where to find the constellations, but hopefully it doesn't detract from the story too much. **


End file.
